


A Trip to the Museum

by flickerthenflare



Category: Glee
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode Related, Friendship, Gift Giving, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Sex Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 07:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flickerthenflare/pseuds/flickerthenflare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Santana decides to repay her roommates for Kurt’s gift by taking them to buy less PG boyfriend replacements, which is awkward enough before Kurt starts shopping for his ex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Trip to the Museum

Kurt’s roommates need boundaries as badly as Kurt’s room needs locks. Or his roommates at least need to care about his sleepy indignation when they barge into his room. What comes out this particular Saturday morning isn’t words, just displeased squawking at Santana yanking his Boyfriend Pillow out from under him. Kurt’s head flops to the significantly less cuddly mattress. 

“Roommate breakfast!” 

Kurt squints at the blurry image of Santana triumphantly holding his pillow out of reach. “What are we having?”

“Whatever you’re making.” Santana leaves with the captured pillow tucked under her arm.

Chasing after her doesn’t seem worth it before 7 in the morning. He shouldn’t reward her misbehavior by doing what she wants. He rolls onto his back, blinks up at the ceiling, and waits for sleep to return. He has regular pillows tossed aside in favor of one capable of hugging him back; He should be able to get back to sleep without it no matter how much more he’s using it lately. He gives it a few minutes but sleep doesn’t come to him, doesn’t even feel close. He frets, for a second, that he’s building a dependency on the Boyfriend Pillow and he’ll have to quit it like he quit the Ambien (or cake when he realized it was not, in fact, a cure for loneliness). If he’s going to consider a Reality TV appearance for anything, it’s not going to be as a featured crazy on _My Strange Addiction_. 

Kurt fumbles for his phone to check the time again. He sighs and officially gives up on getting more sleep as his feet hit the ground. 

Rachel slumps onto the tabletop, also in pajamas and her hair still in braids, as Kurt joins her in the kitchen. He eyes the captured pillow but doesn’t make a play for it. Yet. Once he’s convinced he’s not going through withdrawls, he’ll steal it back. 

“As much as I appreciate staving off loneliness with the creepiest pillows in existence, I have a much better, time-honored tradition we should try instead.” Santana snaps her fingers at her sleepy roommates until she has Rachel’s eyes open and Kurt’s eyes off Rachel. “The post-break-up sex shop excursion! Hummel, you’ve clearly put it off too long already.” 

She slides two pamphlets across the table.

“The Museum of Sex?” Rachel gingerly peaks inside.

“You want us to go shopping for what in a what now? They have a _museum_ for that?” If sex was something you could dig up and study and learn from, he wonders what the lesson would be. It’s probably like dinosaurs where you can dig up the bones but it’s harder to tell why they’re extinct. Are there sex archeologists who can look at the remains of past romantic entanglements and tell you what killed it? 

His dreams are less weird than his mind some days. He thinks of death too easily for other people’s comfort. Everything has an end. Even if he truly believed _‘til death do us part_ would apply to him and Blaine. 

“It’s perfect. One, because it’s an educational institution and I’m going to make sure your unimaginative minds are blown by the time we leave. Two, since it’s a museum, it’ll at least somewhat abate the sense of shame I assumed you had until the sex-dolls-without-fun-parts made their debut in the apartment. If you went for something battery operated instead of for the Pillow Pet, you’d be done pining by now.”

Kurt pushes away from the table. If he’s going to be awkwardly talked at about sex, he’s going to have toast. He blames his dad for linking the two so Kurt can’t have one without thinking of the other. His bread consumption has skyrocketed since Santana moved in, likely taking advantage of the Pavlovian response so she can have breakfast. She’s not likely to stop trying to scandalize him so he supposes he’ll have to give up the toast if he wants even a chance at surviving his ballet class. Another dependency to shake. As he preps the toaster, he makes a mental note to call and check in on his dad and his treatments. 

Rachel continues inspecting the pamphlet too closely to mean anything other than eventual agreement with Santana’s plan for their day. “Sex toys help you move on?”

“ _Sex_ helps you move on, but you shouldn’t and he won’t, so we’re going to go with the next best thing and keep other people out of it. You can move past toys when you stop playing at making adult decisions and are actually capable of doing so.” 

Even though his back is turned, Kurt rolls his eyes. He’ll leave Rachel to tell Santana to mind her own business. 

He entertained the idea of moving on through masturbatory aids on one of his Ambien-induced online shopping nights, going so far as to start browsing a sex toy shop meant to be good for beginners and over-helpfully recommended by Rachel, and had promptly burst into tears because he didn’t want a toy, he wanted _Blaine_. If anyone should be buying dildos in this no-longer-relationship it should be the one who couldn’t wait two weeks instead of falling on someone else’s dick. He blamed the sleep aid for making him feel part of a disorienting bad dream. He couldn’t keep his gasps for breath quiet enough to hide through their virtually nonexistent walls and Rachel crawled into bed with him to let him cry against her, no questions asked. In the end, the pillow won out as the emotionally kinder option. He snuggled up to other people before Blaine; it wasn’t tied so exclusively to him. 

Rachel chooses to conspire with Santana over objecting to how she isn’t _allowed_ to have sex for a while. She leans across the table. “I think he’s going at glacial speed with Adam to be contrary. We get it, you’re not me!”

Kurt arches an eyebrow. “Rachel, you are never, ever going to be a factor in my sex life.” And, despite what half of Ohio would say, being contrary for the sake of it is never a motivator for him.

“I’m your roommate. Of course I’m going to.”

_Because inviting your nudist boyfriend to live with us was so considerate_. He holds back the unkind thoughts that don’t serve his purposes if spoken aloud. She’s mourning her failed relationship and he’ll let her do so without dredging up additional past mistakes that went along with it like caring more about seeming ‘adult’ than thinking about consequences; he’s not Santana. 

“If we go, I won’t peek at what you want to buy,” Rachel promises.

“Don’t make this less fun! In negotiations, you’re not supposed to give away the best part first,” Santana scolds. To Kurt she says, “I’ll resist buying pasta shaped like genetalia to sneak into your food _and_ I will refrain from cooking for you two so you know I mean it. That’s two things. Totally a better deal than what Rachel just said.”

Both his roommates look at him expectantly. He wants to be over Blaine. None of the romantic movies he watched with Adam to replace _Moulin Rouge_ stuck as theirs or even memorable (except for _The Notebook_ , which kind of reminded him of Adam but as the wrong guy and Kurt made him turn the movie off). He and Blaine laid claim to every good one he could think of: _When Harry Met Sally_ for their transition from friends to more; every Disney story ever for the sing-alongs; _West Side Story_ for “One Hand, One Heart;” _Titanic_ for the time in the car when Kurt asked “where to?” and Blaine excitedly commanded Kurt hold that thought so he could clamber out of the car and back in a row behind to respond “to the stars” and pull Kurt into the back seat with him. There weren’t any movies left that would even have a chance. He could try Santana’s methods instead. If it didn’t help him get over Blaine, at least he got something out of it. And the best reason of them all. . . 

“If we make this trip, will you stop coming into my room uninvited?” His roommates know too much about him already. Trading a little less privacy now for more later will be worth it if they continue living together much longer. 

Rachel throws herself into his arms while Santana just smirks. “I knew you’d see reason!”

Santana links arms with both of them on the brief walk from the subway to the museum and the closeness of his friends feels better than the Boyfriend Arm.

Seemingly nonchalant shoppers pack the gift shop, weaving between the rows and around each other like they’re not surrounded by a lot of nudity and like a bicycle with a dildo attached is a perfectly normal thing to have in the display window. Rachel pretends she’s too sophisticated to feel mortification. The pretense lasts for all of two minutes and then she and Santana are giggling and playing like they’re in a regular toy store. Kurt only hisses once at them to settle down and act their age before joining in on the teasing about who needs what novelty item. Relief trumps embarrassment because he’s here with no threat of getting emotional about his ex-boyfriend in the middle of sex shop. Progress. 

He pokes through the flavored condoms with the first hint of interest since they entered the shop. He hadn’t seen these flavors before, or any flavors beyond the standard fruity variety pack. Blaine would love them. 

Of all the things to remind him of his ex. To feel tempted to buy. Although it’s unsurprising they remind him of Blaine given Blaine’s well-stocked stash in both their bedrooms in Ohio and his exuberance for trying all the flavors they had. He likes some more than others and all that’s left in Kurt’s room is apple.

He’s in a museum: home of dead things and times long ago. Of course he finds something fitting for his past relationship. 

He needs to stop poking through the flavored condoms like he’s contemplating them. A truthful message – _these made me think of you_ – would hardly be appropriate. Sleeping with Blaine is counterproductive to moving on, so he resolved not to do it again, and he doesn’t want to think about Blaine using them with someone else. Not that he gets a say in the matter, supplier of condoms or not. Friends buy friends gifts that they would enjoy. Maybe that’s what moving on looks like. 

He ends up with one of every flavor for Blaine and something entirely different for himself. 

Santana snacks on Dirty Fortune Cookies on the subway ride back to Bushwick and tucks the scraps of paper into Rachel’s purse. “You’re welcome.”

Rachel eyes her purse suspiciously but doesn’t pull away. “I hope you’re giving me good fortunes.”

“Only the best, but feel free to thank me for this whole idea as well. Or do I need to give you some alone time with your purchases before I can expect debts of gratitude?”

Kurt snorts. His roommates have strange ways of showing it, but he knows they care. Like Rachel’s turned-down offer to stand in line for him when he hesitated too long even if the hesitation was more about the gift for Blaine than the toy. “I’ll make you both dinner. It’ll be as close to normal roommate bonding as we get.” 

At home, he slips his other purchase from the Museum of Sex Shop into the chest under his bed that holds his Boyfriend Arm. “Oh god, it really does look like a dismembered body now,” he bemoans into the privacy of his room. Like he’s collecting totems to make a real live boy out of Blaine. Or maybe to summon him here, process complete when Santana pins a bowtie to the pillow top like she’s threatened to do. Pining has made him crazy. 

The condoms need a box. Blaine has a terrible habit of not thinking things through, which extends to treating condoms like Easter eggs to be nestled into individual hiding spots and leads to drawn-out searches or unexpected rediscovery. Kurt prefers order. Nothing says “snoop here” like an unmarked brown box, so Kurt bedazzles it. At least it wouldn’t look ashamed of itself. The task reminds him of decorating Pavarotti’s coffin, bedazzling his sadness away. The same sense of mourning washes over him because he’s trying to be over being in love with Blaine but their relationship started like this, kissing over a dead bird’s tiny jeweled casket.

He hasn’t heard from Blaine in what feels like ages. They have brief conversations where Blaine says he’s okay and little else, which would be fine if Kurt ever believed him. The spark he saw in Blaine over Valentine’s weekend faded. The two versions of him are like night and day, or like the frost starting to melt in the sun when they kissed in February followed by the snow storm in March while separate again. 

The toy is satisfying in its own way, but it doesn’t make the pining go away like Santana promised it would. Lord knows he tries. He tries so repeatedly he worries this might be another habit-forming thing. So many ways to take comfort and none of them work. The physical is the bare minimum of what he misses. How could cake or Ambien or pillows or bread or toys compare? All the intangible things than get left behind – like feeling so hopelessly in love and cared for – that can’t be proved or replicated or put in a museum gift shop as a relic of time since passed. 

When Kurt receives a call, he resolves, once again, to update the contact icon for Blaine. All he has on his phone are pictures of them together, smiling with their faces pressed close. He couldn’t bring himself to track down a picture of Blaine on his own or erase it entirely and leave Blaine as a blank gray outline of a person waiting to be defined like he wasn’t anyone to Kurt. Fitting, given Blaine’s undefined, ghost-like presence in his life, but not how Kurt wants to think of him so the old picture stays. 

“Hello?”

“I don’t know what it means.” Blaine’s voice is small not because of the miles between them, with the slight hint of whine.

“Neither do I if you don’t properly introduce your discussion topic,” Kurt sings brightly to counteract Blaine’s tone. He could guess by the lack of preamble, the standard shipping time between New York and Ohio, and the inherent strangeness of what Kurt sent that merits a follow-up discussion.

“Are you mad at me? Or visiting Ohio again? I don’t know why you sent me this. I don’t know whether to be horny or offended, and it’s confusing. You didn’t leave a note.” 

“I don’t think revenge condoms are a thing.” Accidentally calling Blaine a slut never crossed his mind when fretting over what Blaine would think. If he wanted to do that, he would have months ago and a lot more directly. He cycled through that stage of grief already. 

One day they won’t start so many conversations with this tenseness. The strain in Blaine’s voice leaves with an exhale of breath. “Okay. You live with Santana now, so . . .”

“So if revenge condoms were to become a thing she would have a hand in inventing them.”

“Exactly!”

He doesn’t need to see Blaine to picture him sitting on the floor despite having a bed or a chair available, leaning against his comforter with the phone in one hand and turning the box in the other with his brow furrowed. 

“Is this some sort of go in peace thing?”

The sense of finality, of moving on, isn’t there like Kurt expects it to be now that the box is sent and within Blaine’s hands. The “no” is out of his mouth before he can process it. The condoms were supposed to be exactly that: moving on. But Blaine’s package wasn’t from a home of dead things like Kurt told himself it was; it was from a gift shop. They’re supposed to be honest with each other and his original intention doesn’t fit. He’s still not willing to let Blaine go. He can’t promise neither of them is going anywhere, indefinitely staying like this won’t work, so he just says, “this isn’t the end. It’s just . . . they made me think of you.” 

And there go the exact words he wanted to avoid, precisely because they hold too much truth: all the really sexual memories they trigger, the fondness he feels for Blaine now and for the memories of him, the way that thinking of Blaine is a reflex he can’t stop. 

Before Blaine can bring up Ohio again and how Kurt’s not coming back, Kurt says, “They’re a gift. No strings attached. I’m not telling you what to do with them; I just wanted you to have them.” Kurt knows the difference between dead and in a coma, although the two feel the same when you don’t know if they’ll pull through and you can mourn someone before they’re actually gone. Snow White woke up in the end. He has his very own Snow White to wait on. And he just sent him a jeweled casket. 

Kurt lets out a laugh.

“Why are you giggling?” Blaine asks, fondly instead of insecurely. 

“I’ll tell you when you wake up.”

“It’s 4:00 in the afternoon. You know we’re in the same time zone.” Blaine accepts the answer, though, as willingly as he accepts Brittany’s non sequiturs. “I love you.”

He knows all the ways Blaine can say I love you. It’s not as self-assured as the first time or as casual as his once standard way of saying goodbye or as desperate and choked as Thanksgiving when he thought Kurt wouldn’t have a thing to say to him, let alone those words in return. No matter what he always means it.

“I love you, too.” He tries not to say it anymore. It’s always as a response to Blaine because he can’t not. It’s not conducive to moving on when he knows how he means it. It’s overly intimate for what they’re trying to be for each other, but so is the gift. He doesn’t know if he’s meant to be Blaine’s prince or not. Maybe this is a self-empowerment fairytale and Blaine pulls himself out. Or he needs more than a kiss to make him stay.

He starts with trying to get Blaine to say something other than he’s okay.

While the waiting-to-be-awoken metaphor sticks in the back of his mind, Kurt forgets about the box once it’s out of his hands. He doesn’t think of it when they get back together and are ignoring the outside world in favor of relearning each other. He’s preoccupied with kissing Blaine back to life. He makes sure he’s very thorough this time. It’s much later, on an otherwise uneventful night in New York, just a quiet night in, that Blaine fumbles in his satchel and Kurt watches with interest as Blaine sets his Little Death box between them.

“I brought you something,” Blaine says with a self-satisfied scrunch of his nose. He teasingly draws out each word. “I believe you said they made you think of me, so I guess you better keep them to keep me on your mind.”

Kurt feels pretty smug as of late too. He summoned Blaine to his bed, to New York, somehow. Alive and real and within his grasp. Out of habit – the best habit he ever formed – he kisses Blaine to make sure he stays that way. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Blaine wriggles closer until his nose is touching Kurt’s. “And I’ve been waiting _ages_ to try these.”


End file.
